Brad Mehldau: Largo

Brad Mehldau is the American jazz pianist who is frequently embraced as the new Keith Jarrett, but his conceptions are as likely to be shaped by Beethoven as by Ornette Coleman. He released the fifth edition of his Art of The Trio series last autumn; even for Mehldau fans so many returns to the solemnly delicate chamber-jazz territory of the acoustic piano trio could have started to seem like gilding the lily. Yet Mehldau's consistency of invention has been remarkable throughout this five-year run on the same track.

Mehldau is a melodic improviser who works by meticulously massaging fragments and motifs, and his resources are drawn from classical music as much as jazz. His balance of spontaneity and the cherishing of eloquent themes (whether improvised or written) is remarkable, but the organic manner in which he threads them together almost more so. His cerebral and introverted ability to juggle many storylines at once suggests that the Art of the Trio series may still run and run, despite this new disc's turn off the familiar road.

Mehldau is framed quite differently on Largo - a setting that includes chamber-classical woodwind and brass and a percussion sound deploying hip-hop and drum'n'bass grooves. He also plays electric keyboards at times, and the influence of producer Jon Brion - Mehldau's principal collaborator on the project, though the pianist wrote all the arrangements - was clearly critical. There might well have been pragmatic motives behind an undoubtedly more populist project for Mehldau, and on paper it looks like a diversion his traditional fans might cordially loathe, but the set is full of surprises and audacious musical choices.

Though the pianist's long lines and slow-burn approach are inevitably ruffled by so much more jostle and rumpus, Mehldau's muse hangs on with remarkable fortitude. Minimalist oboe figures hover around poignant themes; baroque contrapuntal piano surges spring from behind music-box vibraphone tinkles; squirty electronic abstractions turn into Bitches Brew-like squalls; sepulchral empty-church music turns into Hendrix guitar howls. Some Mehldau admirers may doubt this apparently Jekyll and Hyde transformation. But it is still powered by the pianist's unique imagination, the storyline just moves along a little quicker than usual.